Crabs 'N Constables!

[Stormanimagus]

Hey all!

So I rarely clog up the open forum with deck discussions of sub-optimal decks, but I saw a recent placing of a deck that inspired me to revive interest in my old Crabs Constables deck. Here's the link below:

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=38122.0

Now I do think that mdenny's list was suboptimal, but there were elements of an old engine I tried to make work in Legacy. I think the deck could actually do all right and would certainly be an insanely fun alternative to Standstill. The decks run many of the same cards, but there is more random Jank in my list that can be thought of as "The Engine" or "The Lock."

I'll post the list first and then a brief paragraph on what the deck is designed to do:

Crabs 'N Constables a.k.a "Vintage Steamroller"

Land (17):
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
4 Volcanic Island
1 Steam Vents
7 Island

Artifacts (8):
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
4 Null Rod

Creatures (8):
4 Horseshoe Crab
4 Cephalid Constable

Instants (14):
4 Force Of Will
4 Misdirection
4 Mana Drain
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm

Enchantments - Aura (7):
4 Quicksilver Dagger
3 Infiltrator’s Magemark

Sorceries (6):
3 Reckless Charge
1 Time Walk
1 Ponder
1 Timetwister

SB
3 Threads Of Disloyalty
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Sigil Of Sleep
2 Rack And Ruin
4 Chalice Of The Void

The idea is that a Crab enchanted with Dagger can draw you a card instantly for each U mana you leave open while pinging the opponent for 1 each time. If you are facing a Fishy deck you bring in the Sigil Of Sleeps to bounce every threat they play in the process.

The real fun of the deck, however, is in Cephalid Constable. When enchanted with Magemark you can get in for 2 a turn and keep them at 1 land. Now, Combo can still work with 1 land so I've made sure to run a lot of countermagic + Null Rod & Chalice post SB. Combo is still a very poor matchup, but this pile may actually win some games against the rest of the field.

Any ideas on how to improve it? I've thought of a group of singleton Merchant Scroll Targets like Shadow Rift (awesome with Constable) and even Cryptic Command (also awesome with Constable), but that didn't seem like a very focused approach. Perhaps it would be best to use the Constable engine OR the Crab Engine, but not both. I just like them both ohh so much!

And c'mon. . . Wouldn't it be sweet to utterly ravage a Tezzeret Player and declare Victory by pinging them to death with a Crab? What sweet poetic justice that would be!

[FlyFlySideOfFry]

Maybe it is just me but the earliest you'll usually get this combo going is turn 5 (crabs on 3, dagger on 4, start on 5), at which point casting Dark Confidant on turn 1 off a Mox would have net you 8 damage and 4 cards. On the other hand this combo gives your opponent 2 Time Walks, plenty of time to prepare an answer or just win, and requires 2 cards. What am I missing that takes this deck from really fun to play to worthy of serious discussion? I'd cut the probably useless for Vintage Constable combo since it is eating up 10 deck slots, add key/vault, and splash black for the goodness it provides. Then probably run a few REB/Pyros maindeck and maybe Simian Spirit Guides to power out Rod/combo faster.

[TopSecret]

You should play Puresight Merrow.

Pili-Pala is another card you could consider.

I think you should drop the Magemark and the Constable,
then add in some Psionic Gift.

The Reckless Charges seem like win-more, so those should probably go, too.

[Stormanimagus]

You should play Puresight Merrow.

Pili-Pala is another card you could consider.

I think you should drop the Magemark and the Constable,
then add in some Psionic Gift.

The Reckless Charges seem like win-more, so those should probably go, too.

Why Puresight Merrow? That seems like a useless ability. Pili-Pala is interesting, but requires more mana to make effective. tapping U to untap is far nicer than tapping 2 to do the same. I'll give Pili-Pala some consideration, however.

What about Shocker? could that card have a home in a deck like this?

[FlyFlySideOfFry]

You should play Puresight Merrow.

Pili-Pala is another card you could consider.

I think you should drop the Magemark and the Constable,
then add in some Psionic Gift.

The Reckless Charges seem like win-more, so those should probably go, too.

Why Puresight Merrow? That seems like a useless ability. Pili-Pala is interesting, but requires more mana to make effective. tapping U to untap is far nicer than tapping 2 to do the same. I'll give Pili-Pala some consideration, however.

What about Shocker? could that card have a home in a deck like this?

Filtering the top card of your library while also doing the same stuff as the crab seems better than doing nothing. Also it is a 2/2 and costs 1 less to cast. Also since Pila-Pala adds one mana to your mana pool so it essentially only costs 1 mana while also filtering your colors. The crab actually seems like crap when compared to either of those 2 options lol since they both only cost 2 to cast, have useful abilities when they untap, and both have the untap as part of the cost so you can essentially stack it without passing priority. TopSecret really hit some awsome gems. What exactly does Shocker accomplish? It doesn't untap so you can only use the ping once.

[Stormanimagus]

You should play Puresight Merrow.

Pili-Pala is another card you could consider.

I think you should drop the Magemark and the Constable,
then add in some Psionic Gift.

The Reckless Charges seem like win-more, so those should probably go, too.

Why Puresight Merrow? That seems like a useless ability. Pili-Pala is interesting, but requires more mana to make effective. tapping U to untap is far nicer than tapping 2 to do the same. I'll give Pili-Pala some consideration, however.

What about Shocker? could that card have a home in a deck like this?

Filtering the top card of your library while also doing the same stuff as the crab seems better than doing nothing. Also it is a 2/2 and costs 1 less to cast. Also since Pila-Pala adds one mana to your mana pool so it essentially only costs 1 mana while also filtering your colors. The crab actually seems like crap when compared to either of those 2 options lol since they both only cost 2 to cast, have useful abilities when they untap, and both have the untap as part of the cost so you can essentially stack it without passing priority. TopSecret really hit some awsome gems. What exactly does Shocker accomplish? It doesn't untap so you can only use the ping once.

Hmmm. . . Yeah, I'm an idiot. I mis-read both those cards and haven't dealt with the "untap" ability enough. Both fine options. I like the Pili-Pala a bit more because it can more easily be cast off Drain Mana. Both are interesting choices and deserve consideration.